Solution

What's new in ERA 6.5?

The list below contains information about the most important new features in the latest version of ERA. For full list of improvements and changes, see the ERA 6.5 changelog.

New Security Model/Multi-Tenancy—Fine-tune which devices and features each user can access and edit using customizable permissions sets. You can now grant read, use, and/or write permissions for specific users down to the policy, group or task level, which is particularly convenient in multi-tenant environments.

User Interface (UI) updates—ERA 6.5 includes a number of important updates to the UI, including:

Expanded Post-Installation Wizard: The wizard that was added in ERA 6.4 has been expanded to include additional steps and links to relevant documentation.

Quick Links: The Quick Links menu has been moved to the top of the ESET Remote Administrator Web Console (ERA Web Console). From this menu, you perform common actions and access pertinent Knowledgebase content.

Static left-hand menu: The icons for the menu on the left side of the ERA Web Console have been updated. You can now lock this menu in either the expanded or collapsed position.

Logo customization: You can now add third-party logotypes to the ERA Web Console for "co-branding" and/or "white-labeling".

Status Overview—The Status Overview section now shows information about “invalid objects," which are tasks that point toward non-existent computers, computers with invalid licenses, or packages that are no longer available in the repository. Task and notifications without proper distribution addresses are also higlighted in the corresponding section of the UI.

Override Mode—When a setting is set by a policy, a user can no longer edit this setting on the endpoint itself. For example, if Real-time file system protection is set, by policy, to start automatically on clients running ESET Endpoint Security, it is not possible to pause this feature on a local machine on which this policy is enforced. However, Override Mode allows specific users (who know the security password) to temporarily “unlock” the endpoint for troubleshooting purposes. While Override Mode is enabled, you can do things like export or request configuration from ERA and convert it to policy—the active application of ERA policies will be temporarily postponed. When Override Mode is enabled, a special status is displayed both on the endpoint machine and in ESET Remote Administrator.

Apple iOS MDM improvements—You can now configure ESET Remote Administrator MDM Connector to automatically participate in the Device Enrollment Program (DEP). This means that you can order devices from Apple (assuming you are a member of Apple VPP) and automatically enroll them into ERA MDM. This also allows you to maintain devices in "supervised mode,” meaning they are fully managed (corporate owned).

You also have the ability to control initial configuration of the device (what screens are shown to the user after powering on the device, for example); and ERA now offers the ability to whitelist and/or blacklist applications for iOS, which will control what applications an end user can or cannot install on their device.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here is a list of Frequently Asked Questions about the latest version of ESET Remote Administrator:

Can I use ESET Endpoint version 5 products and/or ESET Business Edition products with ERA 6?
You can manage version 5 products with ERA 6; however, new settings available in version 6 products will not be applied in older products. The Migration Tool is a standalone application that provides a migration of ERA 4.x and 5.x data into an intermediate database and allows you to import it into ERA 6.x.

Parametric Groups, static groups synchronized from Active Directory, tasks and Policies from earlier versions of ERA cannot be migrated to ERA 6 because of changes to the configuration layout. We strongly recommend that you record your policy settings for reference when upgrading from an earlier version of ERA.

If I upgrade ERA from previous version 5.x, can I keep my existing policy settings?
Yes, you can migrate policies from earlier versions of ESET Remote Administrator. However, see the following list of limitations for policy migration:

Only policies from upper ERA server are migrated.

Only policy definitions are migrated, policy relations are not being migrated.

You will need to assign migrated policies to appropriate groups manually after the migration.

Hierarchy of policies is omitted. In case there is an override flag in your old ERA, this flag is converted to a force in ERA 6 policy for that same setting.

If there are settings for multiple products in a single policy in old ERA, an individual policy for each product will be created in ERA 6.

Can I use my Microsoft Access database or my MariaDB database with ERA 6?
No, ERA 6 only supports Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 and later or MySQL 5.5 and later. You can specify the database server that you want to use when you install ERA Server or ERA Proxy.

I don't have an existing database—can I still use ERA 6?
Yes—Microsoft SQL Server Express is included in the ERA 6 installation package. You have the option to install a new SQL Express database that will be configured for use with ERA 6 using default settings. Please note that Microsoft SQL Server Express has a 10GB size limit.

You cannot install Microsoft SQL Server Express on a Domain Controller during ESET Remote Administrator installation. This is likely to happen if you are using Microsoft SBS. If you use Microsoft SBS, we recommend that you install ESET Remote Administrator on a different server or do not select the SQL Server Express component during the installation (this requires you to use an existing SQL Server or MySQL to run ERA database).

How do I find my SQL server port number for use during installation?
The most accurate way to check the port number used by your SQL server is to open SQL Configuration manager and navigate to TCP/IP properties under SQL Server Network Configuration.

It is very difficult to tell if SQL Server installation is running—is it normal for installation to take longer than 10 minutes?
This is normal. Depending on your system configuration, SQL server installation can take up to 1 hour. The ERA 6.5 All-in-one installer now displays the estimated install time for components.

During installation using my existing MySQL database, I receive the notification "The database server is not configured correctly. Please check the documentation and reconfigure the database server as needed".
To resolve this issue, locate your MySQL configuration file (my.ini in Windows and my.cnf in Linux). Open this file using a text editor and locate the [mysqld] section. Add a line to this section that reads max_allowed_packet=33M. The value entered must be 33M or greater for installation to succeed.

For MySQL 5.6.20 and 5.6.21:innodb_log_file_size needs to be set to at least 200 MB

For MySQL >= 5.6.22:innodb_log_file_size*innodb_log_files_in_group needs to be set to at least 200 MB
(* is multiplication, a product of the two parameters must be >= 200 MB)

I am getting an error message "The size of BLOB/TEXT data inserted in one transaction is greater than 10% of redo log size. Increase the redo log size using innodb_log_file_size. (1118)" or simillar in ERA Server trace log.
To resolve this issue, follow the steps described in question 12 above.

The installer says I must install Microsoft .NET framework 3.5, however I cannot install it in Windows Server 2012 using the link provided. Why?

The installer provided by this link cannot be used in Windows Server 2012 because of security policies present in Server 2012. Use the Roles and Features Wizard to install .NET 3.5 instead.

I already have the Microsoft .NET 4.5 frameworkinstalled on my server—do I have to install Microsoft .NET 3.5?
Yes, Microsoft .NET framework 4.5 is not backwards compatible, so you must install .NET 3.5 specifically.

Can I deploy ERA 6 in a virtualized environment?
Yes—ERA 6 is compatible with VMware, Hyper-V and Virtualbox virtualized environments. You can use the ERA 6 Open Virtualization Appliance (OVA) file to deploy ERA Server and ERA Proxy Server in your virtualized environment. See our virtualization FAQ for more information about using ESET products on a VM. For detailed instructions to install the ERA Virtual Appliance, see the ESET Remote Administrator User Guide.

Do I have to install the ERA Agent manually?
No, ERA 6 can locate computers on your network and distribute the ERA Agent to them remotely. See the ESET Knowledgebase article Deploy the ESET Remote Administrator Agent (6.x) for instructions to deploy the Agent to clients on your network.

Can I use the ERA Agent to deploy ERA Proxy Server?
No, ERA Proxy Server must be installed manually. You can, however, distribute the installer to target clients using email.

I am an ESET Managed Service Provider (MSP)—can I upgrade to ERA 6?
ESET offers the following RMM plug-ins for use with ESET Remote Administrator versions 5.3 and later: Kaseya, ConnectWise Automate, ConnectWise Manage, Tigerpaw, Autotask. For more information, see the Remote Management product page.

What is the benefit of ESET License Administrator?
ESET License Administrator combines the different licensing credentials used by older ESET products into a single License key. This eliminates the need for license files that were used by ESET products in the past. Additionally, the ESET License Administrator portal allows a License Owner to administrate their license usage by creating Security Admin accounts. The License Owner maintains full control of license usage and can delegate control of license credentials to Security Admins who are able to manage specific users. For more information, see the ESET License Administrator User Guide.

Available support resources

ESET provides support in the form of User Guides, fully localized application help, online Knowledgebase, and applicable to your region, chat, email or phone support.

ESET Remote Administrator 6.5.31 Changelog

Added: New Access Rights Management (Security Model) allowing multi-tenancy in ESET Remote Administrator (isolation of data), and more granular control over access to objects and tasks (ability to grant specific access to task types and new “use” access right)

Added: Quarantine section with all aggregated quarantined files added to the “admin” section of the main menu

Added: Merging of lists in policies (all lists can now be merged based on the list type, actions to “append”, “prepend” and “replace” are available)

Added: Ability to import exclusions in policy editor for ESET Endpoint for Windows

Added: Ability to granularly configure which statuses will be displayed locally or reported to ESET Remote Administrator

Added: New standalone deployment tool that allows remote / silent push of all in one packages to the network

Added: Support for IBM qRadar (logs can now be natively exported in LEEF Format, which is recognized by IBM qRadar SIEM)

Added: Ability to generate an “offline repository” using the mirror tool (a full dump of all installers in the ESET Repository is performed)

Changed: It is now possible to create an all-in-one installer for Windows Endpoint, File Security for Windows Server, Mail Security for Exchange & Domino and SharePoint products (6.x variants)

Changed: Generated all-in-one installer packages now use the new product installer which is branded and clearly shows license, remote administrator server name and target group, included products and their initial configurations

Changed: New policy flags more clearly denote not applied, applied and forced settings

Improved: Endpoint Scheduler configuration now includes all of the options from the local scheduler instance (actions after scan, ignoring exclusions …)

Improved: It is possible to trigger “shutdown after scan” for the on-demand scan client task in ERA web console

Improved: Ability to select security groups, for Web Control / Device Control configuration. Also, when values are saved, human readable name of the object, instead of SID is displayed (on Windows-based ERA installations only)

Improved: Changed behavior of removing a mobile device from management, where it is possible to stop managing a task without having the mobile application installed to be able to remove it (it still does not report “success”, however it is able to delete the machine without reappearing).

Fixed: An issue that made it impossible to install ESET Mobile Device Connector using MySQL ODBC driver version 5.1.5

Fixed: An issue that made it impossible to upgrade Agent on OS X 10.10 using a component upgrade task

Fixed: An issue that made it impossible to install ERA on Windows Server 2003, when a license key is added during installation

Fixed: Inability to upgrade from EFSW 4.5 to EFSW 6.x using the ERA “software install task” because the upgrade will fail due to a necessary restart

Fixed: When manually upgrading ESET Mobile Device Connector from version 6.1 to newer version on Windows, an error dialog is displayed.

Fixed: You cannot enroll the same device that has been previously enrolled and un-enrolled using the task "Stop managing / Uninstall ERA agent"